Clash Magazine - Kompakthttps://www.clashmusic.com/tags/kompakt
enV/A - Kompakt: Total 17https://www.clashmusic.com/reviews/va-kompakt-total-17
<div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.clashmusic.com/sites/default/files/styles/article_feature/public/field/image/0880319826917.jpg?itok=tbqrpgk4"><a href="/reviews/va-kompakt-total-17"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.clashmusic.com/sites/default/files/styles/article_feature/public/field/image/0880319826917.jpg?itok=tbqrpgk4" width="600" height="600" alt="&#039;V/A - Kompakt: Total 17&#039;" title="&#039;V/A - Kompakt: Total 17&#039;" /></a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-article-subtitle field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Rewarding catch-up with electronic and house giant...</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>Here we have 21 tracks from Germany’s ever reliable, ever visible Kompakt: big on names and content and practically covering every square inch of dancefloor ever laid. Making festival tent pegs take the strain, bringing dyed in the wool European flavours that could easily edge into the pop realm’s backwaters, and exclusives nudging music channels found in the depths of the TV guide (exotica/dead eyed divas registering as early as track two’s ‘In My Head’ by Superpitcher).</p>
<p>Although a pick ’n' mix of styles, side A is — dare it be said — compact, pretty much ruled with metronomic regulation. It may always be poised to soar away without doing so, but that’s kind of the mantra when pledging strength in numbers. There’s dream house carrying a nagging bit of static from Jürgen Paape, the fine line dividing retro and upfront (Thomas/Mayer’s ‘25’), deep house threatening to pull you into the void (Sebastopol’s ‘Flash Pool’) and the precise euphoria of T. Raumschmiere’s ‘Jaguar’ rising to the summit in its own time. Notably, thanks to a Raquet &amp; Stetter edit, folk-house/bedsit blues for sun-up from Chris Klopfer sends a new brand of bittersweet coursing through you on ‘Ashamed’.</p>
<p>The flip is a more expansive mix of willpower and wonderment. Less content with the previous selection’s ability to ease towards the background, it finds itself teetering on the edge of misadventure before bringing itself back to wide-eyed and optimistic. The big draw may be Sasha, but it’s Laurent Garnier taking the wheel of disc two and speeding off into the night while barely leaving a tyre track on ‘1-4 Doctor C’est Chouette’. Christian Nielsen attempts to hide what are pretty monstrous deep techno movements under the cloak of darkness on ‘Hard Times’, while Locked Groove explicitly stalks the back end of the compilation at mid pace, unfurling the potential horrors of ‘Dawn’.</p>
<p>After Kölsch has stamped his authority and caused a hive of jostling with the dominant acid-washed ‘PUSH’, Clarian’s ‘Ankh’, in a wondrous swirl, and Demian’s ‘Milestars’, as an electro-trance orchestration of the sky at night, counter with heartening negotiation getting the Kompakt brand to caption your future holiday photo albums.</p>
<p><strong>7/10</strong></p>
<p>Words: <strong>Matt Oliver</strong></p>
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</div></div></div>Tue, 05 Sep 2017 15:43:16 +0000Matt Oliver97319 at https://www.clashmusic.comhttps://www.clashmusic.com/reviews/va-kompakt-total-17#commentsKraftwerk: Autobahnhttps://www.clashmusic.com/features/kraftwerk-autobahn
<div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.clashmusic.com/sites/default/files/styles/article_feature/public/field/image/Autobahn.jpeg?itok=yxOPnMo9"><a href="/features/kraftwerk-autobahn"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.clashmusic.com/sites/default/files/styles/article_feature/public/field/image/Autobahn.jpeg?itok=yxOPnMo9" width="500" height="500" alt="Autobahn" title="Autobahn" /></a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-article-subtitle field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">A tribute from Kompakt...</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p><strong>Kraftwerk's</strong> influence on pop culture is almost incalculable.</p>
<p>To make a comparison to rock music, Kraftwerk's role in channeling the voice of electronic instruments is the equivalent to the shock of Elvis Presley with the refinement of The Beatles and the artistic daring of Bob Dylan.</p>
<p>Shifting, changing, evolving with near technological precision, the group's current incarnation are at this very minute preparing for an exciting London residency. Taking control of the Tate Modern (itself a former power station) Kraftwerk will run through 'KRAFTWERK - THE CATALOGUE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8' - a full audio / visual exploration of their back catalogue.</p>
<p>Analysing a series of studio albums in their entirety, the group will present their work in a unique environment. To celebrate this, Clash are inviting a series of groups to outline the effect Kraftwerk have had on their music.</p>
<p>First up: Wolfgang &amp; Reinhard Voigt, the brothers who help spearhead Germany's seminal electronic imprint <strong>Kompakt</strong>.</p>
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<p>That Kraftwerk are pioneers of electronic (art) pop music is probably general cultural knowledge all around the musical planet by now. The same applies to the fact that they are celebrated as THE driving force for later musical trends, from NDW to Hip Hop, from EBM to techno. But another of Kraftwerk’s essential achievements must also be considered the fact that they managed to make the German language resound in pop music as never before. Those of us who as youngsters in the 70ies heard „Wir fahr'n, fahr'n, fahr'n auf der Autobahn“ coming out the loudspeakers of their portable radios for the first time, immediately sensed – without really understanding why: This is new. This is unprecedented.</p>
<p>We were bowled over by these melodies, with their catchiness reminscent of childrens’ songs, sung in a stoic and unexcited manner and combined with an entirely new form of beautifully detached machine music. Kraftwerk were the first to successfully raise catchy electronic (pop) music and lyrics to the level of great pop (art) culture through cool exaggeration and without sliding off into the embarrassment of schlager music or sweaty rocker pathos. The themes and selected lyrics, the forms of visual self-display, brought great international recognition especially because Kraftwerk borrowed so many presumedly typical German clichés.</p>
<p>With their albums Autobahn and its successors, 'Radio-Aktivität', 'Transeuropa Express', 'Die Mensch Machine' and 'Computerwelt', Kraftwerk outdistanced anything even faintly comparable by light years.</p>
<p>The most recent accolade conferred upon Kraftwerk by elevating its work to the level of fine arts (MOMA) was long overdue.</p>
<p>“Die Fahrbahn ist, ein graues Band. Weisse Streifen, grüner Rand"<br />
"The road is a grey band. White stripes, green border".</p>
<p>Best regards<br />
Wolfgang &amp; Reinhard Voigt</p>
</div></div></div>Wed, 06 Feb 2013 15:45:08 +0000ClashMusic72082 at https://www.clashmusic.comhttps://www.clashmusic.com/features/kraftwerk-autobahn#commentsElectric Selection - Michael Mayerhttps://www.clashmusic.com/features/electric-selection-michael-mayer
<div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.clashmusic.com/sites/default/files/styles/article_feature/public/field/image/es-issue-79-clash-michael-mayer.jpg?itok=rTjNcc_a"><a href="/features/electric-selection-michael-mayer"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.clashmusic.com/sites/default/files/styles/article_feature/public/field/image/es-issue-79-clash-michael-mayer.jpg?itok=rTjNcc_a" width="628" height="419" alt="Electric Selection - Michael Mayer" title="Electric Selection - Michael Mayer" /></a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-article-subtitle field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">On his Ferdinand Magellan inspired new album</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>For Michael Mayer, life is but a journey; one of discovery, a voyage into new sights, sounds and sensations in search of something to add to the map.<br /><br />
For starters, take Kompakt, the Cologne-based label he helped set up alongside Wolfgang Voigt and Jürgen Paape in ’98. Set up to embrace a multitude of music styles under one unified umbrella, experimentalism has lived in its DNA as it has continued to ripen, refining its vision with countless releases feeding disco, ambient and pop (from Gui Boratto, Superpitcher, Justus Köhncke, DJ Koze, The Field) into the techno formula.<br /><br />
“From the beginning, there was this coordinated system, all these things (ambient, techno, pop, disco) were in the blueprint,” he tells Clash from his home in Cologne. “As we have become more self-confident, we’ve put out things that might shock or surprise our followers, but that is the fun of running a label. Sometimes you can take risky positions and see what comes out.”<br /><br />
Now consider his latest album, ‘Mantasy’ - only his second of an illustrious career that has garnered collaborations with Supermayer and Matthias Aguayo and a hectic DJ schedule despite the day-to-day running, A&amp;Ring and business operation of one of Germany’s most distinguished techno labels. Hardly surprising then that it’s taken eight years to arrive; the early part of 2012 offering the first opportunity to lock himself away in the studio for a few months since 2004’s ‘Touch’, which he cobbled together within the space of weeks.<br /><br />
“I just closed the studio door, tried to forget about everything else around me, all the music I am listening to in the office in my line of duty,” he reflects romantically. “It was really about fantasy. The album is called ‘Mantasy’, which stands for this mysterious place, where nobody has ever been. It could be an island or a continent but it is like this land where things are happening or are not possible to mankind.”<br /><br />
Inspired by the real life journals of 15th Century explorer Ferdinand Magellan, who sought to discover a passage between the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean as part of a sailing entourage of three hundred people on a single ship with two years of food, ‘Mantasy’ is the story of Mayer’s own internal musical exploration.<br /><br />
“They started sailing without knowing where they were going,” he speaks, bordering on reverence. “They had bad maps - wrong maps actually - but I was amazed by this character, how he ignored any reasonable thought and put everything in the service of his dream. I took that inspiration into the studio in the sense that I wanted to discover uncharted territory.”<br /><br />
Heard as a patchwork of styles that make up the Kompakt staple, it’s further proof that Mayer personifies the values that constitute the label he helped conceive. Dealing track-by-track with ambient textures, dark disco, kraut electro and microhouse with the sleek, steely techno aesthetic that defines the imprint, ‘Mantasy’ delivers everything a Kompakt album would - and should - have the propensity to.<br /><br />
It's the result of an ear tuned by time but loosened by the fire of burning audacity; old Pakistani folk music and ’60s and ’70s psychedelia from Korea and Iran on labels like Sublime Frequencies and Stone’s Throw’s Now Again making up just some of the listening informing the album.<br /><br />
‘Mantasy’ is Mayer’s manifesto; his own attempt to leave an intelligible mark within an infinitely sprawling musical universe spiralling further out of the realms of human control. “I know it is difficult these days to do something that no-one has done before, but still I went on a journey,” he reveals. “Not on the ocean, but inside to see what kind of music is sleeping down there.”<br /><br /><strong>MAYER ESSENTIALS<br />
‘GOOD TIMES’ (KOMPAKT)<br />
‘AMANDA’ (KOMPAKT)<br />
‘PRIVAT’ (KOMPAKT)</strong></p>
</div></div></div>Wed, 24 Oct 2012 11:51:48 +0000Admin70502 at https://www.clashmusic.comhttps://www.clashmusic.com/features/electric-selection-michael-mayer#commentsMichael Mayer - Mantasyhttps://www.clashmusic.com/reviews/michael-mayer-mantasy
<div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.clashmusic.com/sites/default/files/styles/article_feature/public/field/image/michael-mayer-mantasy-album-cover.jpg?itok=JHMmwSw9"><a href="/reviews/michael-mayer-mantasy"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.clashmusic.com/sites/default/files/styles/article_feature/public/field/image/michael-mayer-mantasy-album-cover.jpg?itok=JHMmwSw9" width="628" height="628" alt="Michael Mayer - Mantasy" title="Michael Mayer - Mantasy" /></a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-article-subtitle field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Imbues the 4/4 formula with a sleek, steely musicality</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>Like the label he co-owns, Michael Mayer is a trusty workhorse. In between the A&amp;Ring, dancefloor edutainment and just all-round visionary enterprise, somehow ( just somehow) he’s managed to squeeze out his sophomore LP.</p>
<p>While 2004’s ‘Touch’ is an LP he rustled up in a matter of weeks, ‘Mantasy’ is a much more considered affair, a patchwork of the numerous technoinformed influences that has taken eight years to put together. Drawing upon the aesthetic touch points that define the Kompakt staple, Mayer imbues the 4/4 formula with a sleek, steely musicality throughout without forgetting its quirky pop sensibility.</p>
<p>Opener ‘Sully’ might exercise Mayer’s ambient propensity but ‘Lamusetwa’ doesn’t faff about, flagging up an epic film score circa 1940 with reinforced beats. ‘Wrong Lap’ could be the sinewy, dark matter disco of production partner Superpitcher, highlighting the characterising influence the Mayer suffix has on the Supermayer moniker. That floating, progressive touch regularly on the annual ‘Total’ compilations returns with the growling 303 arpeggio of the title track, while Mayer’s ulterior fascination with broken beats shines through once again on ‘Roses’.</p>
<p>There is even the obligatory dose of absurdity on ‘Rudi Was A Punk’, which sounds like the Nuns On The Run brass of Yello’s ‘Hawaiian Chance’ played in an eerie, half-remembered New Orleans jazz bar. The pick, however, is the chugging electro-punk of ‘Neue Furche’. </p>
<p>Much like the ‘Total’ series, ‘Mantasy’ is a mix bag. What it lacks in direction, it makes up with box-ticking diversity. Representing the sum of all the label’s split personalities - including the rousing microhouse of closer ‘Good Times’ - it should be listened to more as a celebratory catalogue than a seamless concept LP; a worthy precursor to next year’s ‘Twenty Years Of...’ </p>
<p><strong>8/10</strong></p>
<p><strong>Words by ADAM SAVILLE</strong></p>
</div></div></div>Tue, 23 Oct 2012 08:16:14 +0000Admin70554 at https://www.clashmusic.comhttps://www.clashmusic.com/reviews/michael-mayer-mantasy#commentsMichael Mayer Releases 'Mantasy'https://www.clashmusic.com/news/michael-mayer-releases-mantasy
<div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.clashmusic.com/sites/default/files/styles/article_feature/public/field/image/Michael-Mayer-Mantasy-album-new.jpg?itok=VeGlCZSn"><a href="/news/michael-mayer-releases-mantasy"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.clashmusic.com/sites/default/files/styles/article_feature/public/field/image/Michael-Mayer-Mantasy-album-new.jpg?itok=VeGlCZSn" width="628" height="333" alt="" /></a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-article-subtitle field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">First solo studio album in 8 years</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>Michael Mayer, co-founder of the Kompakt label, today releases his new 'Mantasy' album, his first solo studio long player for 8 years.</p>
<p>Michael says about the album, "MANTASY clearly reflects the gazillions of sounds I'm listening to in private, especially my love for soundtracks or soundtrack-like music." Clash's own review noted that "it's further proof that Mayer personifies the values that constitute the label he helped conceive."</p>
<p>Available in 2 x 180gsm vinyl (with a limited edition silk scarf) as well as on CD and digitally, Mayer's Kompakt co-founder Wolfgang Vogt has supplied the artwork.</p>
<p>The full tracklisting of 'Mantasy':</p>
<p>01/A1 Sully <br />
02/A2 Lamusetwa <br />
03/A3 Wrong Lap 04/B1 Mantasy<br />
05/B2 Roses<br />
06/C1 Baumhaus<br />
07/C2 Rudi Was A Punk<br />
08/C3 Voigt Kampff Test<br />
09/D1 Neue Furche<br />
10/D2 Good Times</p>
<p>Stay tuned to ClashMusic.com for an interview with Michael Mayer this Thursday.</p>
<p><strong>Looking forward to the album? Has the silk scarf swung it for you? Let us know in the comments below.</strong></p>
</div></div></div>Tue, 23 Oct 2012 07:51:37 +0000Admin70553 at https://www.clashmusic.comhttps://www.clashmusic.com/news/michael-mayer-releases-mantasy#comments